Guiding Light
by Two Dark Queens
Summary: A gift for Nightmare Prince. Follow-up to "Gifts". AU. This is a nonlinear drabble series in which Voldemort has a family, is truly immortal, and maybe sort-of understands love.
1. Twinkle Twinkle Little Jar

**DISCLAIMER: Harry Potter belongs to JK Rowling.**

~ Guiding Light ~  
(based on "Gifts" by The Rose in Death's Garden)

[in the 45th year since the Rebirth of Our Dark Lord]

"What is it?" the child asked, awestruck, reaching uselessly toward the high shelf upon which the tiny jar was perched.

"Faerie glass," the monster answered in a voice hoarse with disuse.

The child turned shining eyes toward the dark corner where the firelight didn't reach. Her sight could not pierce the shadows but she had been taught that it was polite to look at your interlocutor during a conversation.

"Isn't that really rare?"

"Supposedly. Although I've owned two of them in my existence."

"What's the light inside it, though? It doesn't look like a firefly or a wisp."

"It's a shard of someone's soul."

"It's a horcrux?" the child inquired, with not a single hint of revulsion. She had been raised on tales of dark magic and horror, and as such had little sense of fear toward subjects which many people would find unpalatable.

"No," the monster rasped. "Faerie glass is made to contain a light source. A piece of soul extracted in hatred would fail to emit light."

The child possessed enough knowledge to be aware that the opposites of darkness and hatred were light and love, and enough sense not to speak her thought process aloud in the monster's presence.

"Whose soul is it?"

"Your grandmother."

~oOo~


	2. Old Enemy, We Meet Again In Undeath

~ Guiding Light ~  
(based on "Gifts" by The Rose in Death's Garden)

[in the far-flung future]

"How are you enjoying your immortality?"

The words that issued from the splintered soul's undead shell should not have startled the Master of Death, since finding the creature was his quest, but startle him they did.

The sound was not the same voice as the one he remembered from his childhood, not nearly the same. _High, cold_. Not anymore. The creature's words were delivered in a wretched rasp.

"I hate it," he answered, unable to keep the bitterness from seeping into his tone. "Everyone I've ever loved is dead! _And I know where they are_ but I can't _get to_ them."

"You've come here to... what? Kill me? You can't."

"But the prophecy-"

"That old thing? It was subverted the moment the old fool surrendered the Stone to you, giving you rightful - if not _actual_ \- possession of all three Hallows, anointing you as the Master of Death." The creature chuckled. "No, we are both truly immortal now."

"Your horcruxes can still be destroyed. _You_ can still be destroyed."

"Yes," his foe hissed, "but not by you. One of my horcruxes is in a place you can never reach. Bellatrix carried it into the afterlife with her." As the Master of Death stared in shock at this pronouncement, the creature took the opportunity to further taunt his enemy. "Everyone you've ever loved is dead, you said? So your bloodline has ended, then? My descendants are still in existence, continuing to multiply and carry out my bidding..."

~oOo~


	3. Nicolette and Alethia

~ Guiding Light ~  
(based on "Gifts" by The Rose in Death's Garden)

[in the 45th year since the Rebirth of Our Dark Lord]

A middle-aged witch slipped into the room and knelt at the edge of the dense shadows that cloaked the monster's throne.

"My lord," she said softly.

The elderly Dark Lord made a sound of displeasure in the back of his throat.

"Call me Father, Nicolette."

"F-father," she stammered out, her discomfort obvious. She may have married the monster's son, but she could not bring herself to think of this creature as part of her family.

"I... I've come to retrieve Alethia... for dinner."

He did not fail to notice the way Nicolette faltered when she spoke to him, but he did nothing to attempt to ease her nerves. Either she would get used to him or she would not. Her emotions were her own problem to solve, not any business of his.

The child scowled at her mother's pronouncement and protested, "But Mama, I want to stay with Grandpa!"

"Go with your mother now," he said, "and you may return after dinner."

The child still looked upset at being told she had to leave, but in this household her grandfather's word was law.

~oOo~


	4. The Monster in the Corner

~ Guiding Light ~  
(based on "Gifts" by The Rose in Death's Garden)

[in the 70th year since the Rebirth of Our Dark Lord]

He sits alone in the shadowed corner of his room where the light from the fire does not reach. In each gnarled hand he holds a small jar. One is warm against his palm, its glow barely visible between the cracks of his fingers. The other is filled with blood.

There is no one to celebrate the sixty-eight anniversary of his rebirth.

His followers - sycophants, soldiers, weaklings who merely need orders to follow, or sociopaths who love to kill... no longer his old friends or true believers in the cause - are not close enough to him to even know the significance of this day.

His partner (he hesitates still to call her _lover_ despite all that they have been to each other) is long gone in mind, even if her souls stills clings to the wretched husk of her body.

The children are away, leading missions to expand the Dark Empire. The grandchildren are grown and off somewhere in distant lands, learning magic both arcane and brand-new, and starting families of their own.

He considers opening the jars and consuming their contents. But not all at once, no. Then he would have nothing left of her to savor.

_Maybe just a drop of the blood_...

Before he has time to do more than think about it, the door creaks open and a blond head peeks into the room.

"Uncle," says a none-too-familiar voice.

Before he has quite placed the young man's identity, another voice pipes up, "Uncle!"

A child, who can't be more than three years old, toddles into the room. The Dark Lord tucks the jars into his pocket as the child fearlessly dashes to the shadow-cloaked throne and clambers into his lap.

The man is more hesitant to approach him, but enters the room all the same.

"Hi," the little girl says. "Daddy finks today is your birfday so we bringed you a present."

Looking toward the young man again, the Dark Lord sees that he is indeed holding what appears to be a wrapped gift. Finally placing the face, he says, "Scorpius Greengrass."

Scorpius gives a shaky smile.

"I'm surprised you remember me, sir. We've met few enough times and my father's wife did not approve of my coming here... I. Um. I brought you a book but you probably already have it... I didn't know what else to get..."

The book is not important. Despite the state of his shredded soul, the Dark Lord had learned a thing or two about the importance of family.

"What is the child's name?" he asks.

"Bellatrix."

The Dark Lord does not know whether to be offended or honored that Draco's illegitimate son and Harry Potter's daughter have chosen to name their child after the Dark Lady.

~oOo~


End file.
